southsider2k5

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0907/5992.html

Happy Birthday Steff! :cheers And good luck to Jim Hopefully everything is moving along well

QUOTE(kapkomet @ Sep 25, 2007 -> 08:34 AM) SS, mr_genius, and myself. The troika of Darth Vader followers. And with our convient control the media, we can pretty much do whatever we want.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Sep 25, 2007 -> 08:25 AM) A northern black man can not win a general Presidential election. The electoral college and the nation's majority simply won't allow it. When you throw in his youth, inexperience and proneness to gaffes ("we will never use nukes" "let's go into Pakistan!") he is a dead man. He also energizies a wing of the Democratic party that by and large is under-represented at the polls. Clinton does that to some extent, but Edwards doesn't at all. Youth doesn't preclude anything in the national election, looking at JFK and Bill Clinton saids so. Edwards lacks the fund raising, the political machine, and the likability factor that the other two major candidates have at least one trait of.

Can we all argee that Jerry Owens is the new Scott Podsednik? (well minus the injuries)

Congratulations to Josh. If we cut cut the strike outs down to about 1 out of 5Abs instead of 1 in 3, he is going to be dangerous. If he makes contact, the ball jumps off of his bat. The kid has 50 homer potential.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 24, 2007 -> 03:23 PM) Oh if you want to phase it out completely, I might support that. But meanwhile, for people currently in the program, you still have an obligation. And I think that the 97k cap being released would go a long way towards meeting that. Your clarification makes a differentiation that, to me, doesn't exist. They are taking money out that would be theoretically paid back in later, either way, and that to me is a huge risk I would not be willing to take. I'd love to see SS phased out. There is no way it happens, so there is no real point in even dreaming about it. Its on my list of government programs I could do without. Also it would basically take a collapse of the US government before SS wouldn't get paid out. It isn't really much of a risk in reality.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Sep 24, 2007 -> 09:10 PM) Obama is the least electable of the three, IMO. Jack Edwards is so unelectable, its not even funny. Hillary and Barack have a way better chance of winning the general election.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Sep 24, 2007 -> 05:27 PM) If you think it's about healthcare, you're wrong. It's about protecting jobs. 15 years ago, there were a quarter million UAW workers with GM. Since then, due to spinoffs and plant closures, its down to about 73,000. http://money.cnn.com/2007/09/24/news/compa...dex.htm?cnn=yes Looks like the UAW has been working with GM to lower health care costs as well.... How many less cars are they selling? The irony is that GM is going to look like the evil corporation here, but this is a by-product of people not buying American cars anymore. If people are going to buy Japanese cars, then expect American car companies to layoff employees. With the costs of legacy employees and their current employees, they aren't going to be able to compete with the Japanese on price or quality. They are too busy putting $1500 a car into health care that could be going into R&D. GM is too busy trying to decide how to fund $51 billion in unfunded future pension costs... a cost Toyota even with their record profits, doesn't face. If we aren't going to buy American, don't be surprised when American companies cut costs, IE workers.

QUOTE(Gregory Pratt @ Sep 25, 2007 -> 07:41 AM) I don't know why that bothers me as much as it does. But I think that when you and Kap and mr. genius and whoever else say that, you forfeit the right to complain when someone draws an equally sleazy parallel from Bush to Hitler. I didn't think the green would be necesary, but I guess I'll have to remember that next time.

QUOTE(Rex Kicka** @ Sep 24, 2007 -> 05:17 PM) There's a big difference between Columbia and a Madrassa. You don't exactly see Muslim leaders flocking to Liberty or Oral Roberts, do you? Sure, many of the same politicial views are held at Columbia that are held at many Madrassas...

QUOTE(29andPoplar @ Sep 24, 2007 -> 02:55 PM) Extremely deep to CF, 3/4 of the way up. If not 500 ft. awfully close. I was there with 3 other guys that game and we had a table on the top level of the Bullpen bar. We got there early for batting practice and one of the guys was yapping away with his back turned toward the field. Bonds was taking BP and I suggested this guy turn around to watch. He did for several pitches and then turned his back to the field to start talking with someone and just as he did Bonds whistled one out to RF. It whizzed a centimeter past the guys head and hit off the silver railing of the sports bar. The guy said he felt the breeze of the ball blowing by him. I was sitting in 101 that day, in the 3rd row. The ball was hit at least 20 rows over my head. I have never seen a ball get that far, not to mention getting out as quick as it did. I laughed when the estimated it under 450 feet.

QUOTE(BigSqwert @ Sep 23, 2007 -> 06:37 PM) I do. They will sell out that park until the day they tear it down. They bank on WGN. WGN and the Cubs will be separate entities after the sale goes through. They won't get sweetheart deals designed to maximize Tribune Co profits anymore.

Apparently Iran has no homosexuals... http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=206...&refer=home

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Sep 24, 2007 -> 12:58 PM) You're related to everybody. Its an Indiana thing... We are all related.

I'd swear to this day that Barry Bonds homer off of Bartolo Colon in the 9th inning of a game, after having been struck out the first 3 times he was up, was every bit of 500 feet.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 24, 2007 -> 02:03 PM) This is a tax increase I would actually support. The 97k SS cap is a regressive tax as it stands now - I would be more than OK with applying the SAME RATE (not a higher rate) to money made beyond that point as well, given the need to stabilize the SS fund and hopefully stop Congress from borrowing from it. Eh, I hate the social security program. All it is, is a large scale pyramid program. As less people work, and more people retire, it is going to suck out more and more money, for benefits most of us will never see. And just for clarification sake, the government isn't borrowing SS dollars at anypoint. They are borrowing against SS dollars. There is a difference.

I know things can change between now and the first few primaries, but she is troucing the rest of the field and has a huge amount of money, along with big time name recognition. Plus I get the feeling she isn't going to have a YEEAH moment...

Well Barack has already talked about raising taxes on the $250K + crowd... Now he is onto the $97K+ crowd. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3638710&page=1

QUOTE(elrockinMT @ Sep 24, 2007 -> 10:57 AM) Broadway gets to start on Thursday. I'll be interested to se how that goes. It is very classy of Mark Buehrle to give up his last start for Broadway. Personally I would have rather them run Phillips out there as he is out of options, but it works either way.

QUOTE(sox4lifeinPA @ Sep 24, 2007 -> 01:07 PM) kap, ss2k5 and I went to a Ranger's game once... THAT'S Iconic Well 2 out of 3 aint bad...

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 24, 2007 -> 12:56 PM) I believe that SS2K5 called this - and Bayh being her VP pick. I can't remember if it was Kap or I that said it, but let me just say that they deserve each other. Hill has to get someone on the ballot who can pick up some either midwest or deep south traditional republician states. Bayh on the ballot might be enough to carry Indiana for Hill.

QUOTE(Balta1701 @ Sep 24, 2007 -> 12:57 PM) Already Done. A couple of things here.... First of all it said right in the article he took a reduction in salary. The money came from stock options. Now I don't know how familiar you all are with options, but they are not guarenteed. The stock has to be at a certian price before they are worth anything. In other words you are changing your paycheck into a risk, instead of a known factor. How willing would you be to do that? Secondly I am about 99.9% sure that GM is a company with an ESIP. In other words employees get to purchase GM stock for a discount of a fixed amount. The company I work for gives us a 5% discount, so I am sure GM gets at least 10%. So if the CEO is pushing the stock price upwards enough to make his option worth something, he is also making the employees a good amount of money through their ESIPs. Its not like just the CEO owns company stock.

QUOTE(NorthSideSox72 @ Sep 24, 2007 -> 12:03 PM) Its kind of sad, the s***ty predicament that the American car companies have put themselves into. By allowing themselves to be hamstrung over the decades by unions, they have simply not been able to be competitive with Japanese and Korean manufacturers (even those who also make their cars in the U.S.). And now the American workers, who were the ones the unions were supposed to protect, are the ones who are suffering. The only way these companies could really get themselves on a level playing field at this point is if they bite the bullet, and really start things over. Tear up every single labor contract on the books and structure something reasonable. Get out of the pension business. Tear down the aging facilities and build newer, more automated ones (over time of course). If the union resists... and here is the really hard part... call their bluff. Hire people individually. This will be very costly for all involved in the short run, but ultimately, it may be the only way they can be around in 10 years. Good post. Really the auto workers are going the way of the airlines and steel mills. They are pricing themselves out of jobs, and don't even realize it.

http://crainsdetroit.com/apps/pbcs.dll/art...1/1009/breaking